The fraud is out there. Housing benefit cheats cost the UK more than £95m a year. But don't worry: agents are on the case. Mahua Chatterjee meets Newcastle's team of fraud officers and finds that although it's not glamorous, it works
The door creaks open. The lights are dim and there is silence in the room. No sign of anyone. The fraud officer's torch beam sneaks round the door ... the back door slams as the fraudster makes a run for it – only to be nabbed by the officer's back-up team of colleagues waiting outside.

This is probably how most of us would picture the work of a benefit fraud investigator. In reality, the process is less like a TV show but no less exciting for those involved, says Newcastle council benefits manager Lorraine Burns: "The team like their job as they build up sources and contacts and set themselves targets." The job is not so much about FBI-style busts as it is about analysing computer data and monitoring potential suspects who have been identified by colleagues or by tip-offs.

Computer power
The officers have their own annual targets for the number of cases they take on, but a fraud officer's day is not spent tailing the enemy. Surveillance techniques are sometimes used to gather evidence but only as a last resort to back up information, and officers have to make a strong case for it. Rather, a typical day in an officer's life is spent mostly in the office, working with details supplied by clerical staff, using the computer to check cases, arranging visits, preparing statements and going through cases for prosecution with the in-house solicitor.

For Newcastle Council such diligent labour has paid off in the detection of £800,000 of fraud, winning the team great praise from the Audit Commission, which is working to stamp out fraud.

The commission described Newcastle's achievement as a "fantastic result" and it estimated that the follow-up work on a fraud hotline had saved more than £24,000.

But if you ask Burns to tell you the secret to the council's success, she will modestly tell you that she doesn't know. There is no simple answer to why Newcastle succeeds where many others fail, she says; but what she does know is that the team is continually growing and developing and its recent success is the fruit of many years of labour.

Newcastle's benefit fraud team started in 1991 with five members and has since grown to 14 dedicated individuals. The chain of command is well-defined, from a fraud manager, down through two senior officers, five team leaders and six fraud inspectors.

The work ethic of the team has also developed so that they are more proactive than reactive. Burns says: "In the past, there was a lack of planning and we would go at things and react to things without thinking the situation and consequences through first."

That's changed now. Specific areas for prosecutions and sanctions, such as financial penalties or cautions, are worked out in advance as part of an annual plan. Monthly meetings keep the team in touch with how these cases are developing.

Inspectors tend to focus on the cases where they know there is a good chance of success, keeping the trickier ones until a quieter period when they can be given the attention they need.

Law enforcement
The council arranges secondments for individuals from the team to the Department of Work and Pensions. These secondments allow officers to go to the Benefits Agency and learn about how to present a prosecution case. Once they return to the council they work more effectively with the in-house solicitor and prepare better prosecutions.

Since 1994 Newcastle has identified £11m in fraud and a prosecutions policy was introduced in March 2000, from which there have been 59 successful prosecutions.

The Newcastle fraud team works with the police and the Benefits Agency in a system called Operation Rigsby. One member of staff from the benefit fraud unit is based with Operation Rigsby in the police offices at all times. This enables the fraud officer to concentrate on one particular area of fraud, leaving the rest of the Newcastle team to focus on other areas.

Not just 'getting' people
Whereas there is a obviously a thrill in catching crooks, there are downsides. Burns says: "We discourage them from simply trying to 'get' people". Also, it's easy for officers to become hardened by their experiences as, at times, the job is difficult and unpleasant; challenging suspected wrongdoers can involve face-to-face confrontation, which not everyone finds easy.

So is it now time for Burns and her team to sit back and enjoy the commission's praise? Not at all: their motto is very much "onwards and upwards" and, of course, benefit baddies are still at large. The dedication of the staff and the organisation and planning that goes into tracking those who cheat the system are the foundation on which the council's success has been built. The main aim now is to keep up the good work.

The facts on fraud

  • In 2000/01, benefit fraud in England and Wales amounted to £94.7m – and that’s just the 112,000 cases that were detected.
  • The Audit Commission runs a National Fraud Initiative every two years. In 2000 it highlighted £24m of benefit fraud, a rise of £15m since the last report, in 1998. In addition it uncovered £83,000 of overpayments and cases of fraud by individuals, as opposed to the organised criminal groups that commit the majority of benefit fraud.
  • The administration of housing benefit has undergone a number of changes at central government level since 1999 in order to deal with fraud and control expenditure. The changes mean that local authorities have found the housing benefit scheme increasingly complex and difficult to administer and process.
  • The Audit Commission proposed this month that the Department of Work and Pensions should allow local authorities to base their approach to fraud on local conditions rather than using national guidelines.

Source

Housing Today